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It is vital you pick approach research methodologies and methods for your thesis - your research after all is what your whole dissertation will rest on.
Choosing qualitative or quantitative research methodologies
Your research will dictate the kinds of research methodologies you use to underpin your work and methods you use in order to collect data. If you wish to collect quantitative data you are probably measuring variables and verifying existing theories or hypotheses or questioning them. Data is often used to generate new hypotheses based on the results of data collected about different variables. One’s colleagues are often much happier about the ability to verify quantitative data as many people feel safe only with numbers and statistics.
However, often collections of statistics and number crunching are not the answer to understanding meanings, beliefs and experience, which are better understood through qualitative data. And quantitative data, it must be remembered, are also collected in accordance with certain research vehicles and underlying research questions. Even the production of numbers is guided by the kinds of questions asked of the subjects, so is essentially subjective, although it appears less so than qualitative research data.
Qualitative research
This is carried out when we wish to understand meanings, look at, describe and understand experience, ideas, beliefs and values, intangibles such as these. Example: an area of study that would benefit from qualitative research would be that of students’ learning styles and approaches to study, which are described and understood subjectively by students.
Research methods in brief:
Look at the very brief outlines of different methods below. Consider which you intend using and whether you could also find it more useful to combine the quantitative with the qualitative. You will be familiar with many of these methods from your work and from MA, MSc or BA study already.
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